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  • Stave III: The Second of the Three Spirits

  • Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts

  • together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of

  • One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial

  • purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to him through Jacob

  • Marley’s intervention. But finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began

  • to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside

  • with his own hands; and lying down again, established a sharp look-out all round the

  • bed. For he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not

  • wish to be taken by surprise, and made nervous.

  • Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move

  • or two, and being usually equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their capacity for

  • adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter;

  • between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive

  • range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don’t mind calling

  • on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and

  • that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.

  • Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing;

  • and, consequently, when the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a

  • violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet

  • nothing came. All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of

  • ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour; and which, being

  • only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what

  • it meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very

  • moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation

  • of knowing it. At last, however, he began to thinkas you or I would have thought

  • at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to

  • have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it tooat last, I say, he began

  • to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room,

  • from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking full possession

  • of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door.

  • The moment Scrooge’s hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and

  • bade him enter. He obeyed.

  • It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation.

  • The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from

  • every part of which, bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe,

  • and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there;

  • and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth

  • had never known in Scrooge’s time, or Marley’s, or for many and many a winter season gone.

  • Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry,

  • brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings,

  • barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense

  • twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious

  • steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who bore

  • a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty’s horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its

  • light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door.

  • Come in!” exclaimed the Ghost. “Come in! and know me better, man!”

  • Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not the dogged

  • Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit’s eyes were clear and kind, he did not like

  • to meet them.

  • “I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” said the Spirit. “Look upon me!”

  • Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered

  • with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was

  • bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath

  • the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering

  • than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were

  • long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice,

  • its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique

  • scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

  • You have never seen the like of me before!” exclaimed the Spirit.

  • Never,” Scrooge made answer to it.

  • Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very

  • young) my elder brothers born in these later years?” pursued the Phantom.

  • “I don’t think I have,” said Scrooge. “I am afraid I have not. Have you had many

  • brothers, Spirit?”

  • More than eighteen hundred,” said the Ghost.

  • “A tremendous family to provide for!” muttered Scrooge.

  • The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

  • Spirit,” said Scrooge submissively, “conduct me where you will. I went forth last night

  • on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught

  • to teach me, let me profit by it.”

  • Touch my robe!”

  • Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.

  • Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages,

  • oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, the

  • fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas

  • morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not

  • unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings,

  • and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come

  • plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snow-storms.

  • The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the

  • smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground;

  • which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts

  • and waggons; furrows that crossed and re-crossed each other hundreds of times where the great

  • streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace in the thick yellow mud and

  • icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist,

  • half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if

  • all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing

  • away to their dear heartscontent. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or

  • the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest

  • summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

  • For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee;

  • calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball

  • better-natured missile far than many a wordy jestlaughing heartily if it went

  • right and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterersshops were still half open,

  • and the fruitererswere radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied

  • baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors,

  • and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced,

  • broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars,

  • and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced

  • demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming

  • pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepersbenevolence to dangle

  • from conspicuous hooks, that people’s mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were

  • piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the

  • woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk

  • Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in

  • the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried

  • home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among

  • these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared

  • to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round

  • their little world in slow and passionless excitement.

  • The Grocers’! oh, the Grocers’! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or

  • one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending

  • on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly,

  • or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the

  • blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were

  • so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and

  • straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten

  • sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it

  • that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness

  • from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas

  • dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the

  • day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets

  • wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them,

  • and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the Grocer

  • and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened

  • their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection,

  • and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.

  • But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and away they came,

  • flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And

  • at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings,

  • innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakersshops. The sight of these

  • poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside

  • him in a baker’s doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled

  • incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for

  • once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled

  • each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored

  • directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was!

  • God love it, so it was!

  • In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing

  • forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of

  • wet above each baker’s oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.

  • Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?” asked Scrooge.

  • There is. My own.”

  • Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?” asked Scrooge.

  • To any kindly given. To a poor one most.”

  • Why to a poor one most?” asked Scrooge.

  • Because it needs it most.”

  • Spirit,” said Scrooge, after a moment’s thought, “I wonder you, of all the beings

  • in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people’s opportunities of

  • innocent enjoyment.”

  • “I!” cried the Spirit.

  • You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day

  • on which they can be said to dine at all,” said Scrooge. “Wouldn’t you?”

  • “I!” cried the Spirit.

  • You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?” said Scrooge. “And it comes to the

  • same thing.”

  • “I seek!” exclaimed the Spirit.

  • Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your

  • family,” said Scrooge.

  • There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know

  • us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness

  • in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never

  • lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”

  • Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into

  • the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed

  • at the baker’s), that notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself

  • to any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and

  • like a supernatural creature, as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.

  • And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else

  • it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led

  • him straight to Scrooge’s clerk’s; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him,

  • holding to his robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped

  • to bless Bob Cratchit’s dwelling with the sprinkling of his torch. Think of that! Bob

  • had but fifteenBob” a-week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies

  • of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed

  • house!

  • Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit’s wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown,

  • but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid

  • the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while

  • Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the

  • corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob’s private property, conferred upon his son and

  • heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired,

  • and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy

  • and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker’s they had smelt the goose,

  • and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these

  • young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies,

  • while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the

  • slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.

  • What has ever got your precious father then?” said Mrs. Cratchit. “And your brother,

  • Tiny Tim! And Martha warn’t as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour?”

  • Here’s Martha, mother!” said a girl, appearing as she spoke.

  • Here’s Martha, mother!” cried the two young Cratchits. “Hurrah! There’s such

  • a goose, Martha!”

  • Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!” said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing

  • her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

  • We’d a deal of work to finish up last night,” replied the girl, “and had to

  • clear away this morning, mother!”

  • Well! Never mind so long as you are come,” said Mrs. Cratchit. “Sit ye down before

  • the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!”

  • No, no! There’s father coming,” cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere

  • at once. “Hide, Martha, hide!”

  • So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet

  • of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes

  • darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny

  • Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!

  • Why, where’s our Martha?” cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.

  • Not coming,” said Mrs. Cratchit.

  • Not coming!” said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had

  • been Tim’s blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. “Not

  • coming upon Christmas Day!”

  • Martha didn’t like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely

  • from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled

  • Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in

  • the copper.

  • And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on

  • his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart’s content.

  • As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself

  • so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that

  • he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be

  • pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind

  • men see.”

  • Bob’s voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that

  • Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.

  • His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another

  • word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while

  • Bob, turning up his cuffsas if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more

  • shabbycompounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it

  • round and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter, and the two ubiquitous young

  • Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

  • Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered

  • phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of courseand in truth it was something

  • very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little

  • saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss

  • Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside

  • him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody,

  • not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their

  • mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last

  • the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as

  • Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the

  • breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one

  • murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young

  • Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!

  • There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose

  • cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration.

  • Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family;

  • indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the

  • dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest

  • Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates

  • being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alonetoo nervous to bear

  • witnessesto take the pudding up and bring it in.

  • Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody

  • should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with

  • the goose — a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of

  • horrors were supposed.

  • Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day!

  • That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other,

  • with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit

  • enteredflushed, but smiling proudlywith the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball,

  • so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas

  • holly stuck into the top.

  • Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the

  • greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that

  • now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity

  • of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all

  • a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit

  • would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

  • At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire

  • made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges

  • were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit

  • family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one;

  • and at Bob Cratchit’s elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers, and a custard-cup

  • without a handle.

  • These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done;

  • and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered

  • and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:

  • “A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!”

  • Which all the family re-echoed.

  • God bless us every one!” said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

  • He sat very close to his father’s side upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little

  • hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded

  • that he might be taken from him.

  • Spirit,” said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, “tell me if Tiny

  • Tim will live.”

  • “I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost, “in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch

  • without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future,

  • the child will die.”

  • No, no,” said Scrooge. “Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.”

  • If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,” returned

  • the Ghost, “will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it,

  • and decrease the surplus population.”

  • Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with

  • penitence and grief.

  • Man,” said the Ghost, “if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked

  • cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what

  • men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more

  • worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God! to hear

  • the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in

  • the dust!”

  • Scrooge bent before the Ghost’s rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground.

  • But he raised them speedily, on hearing his own name.

  • Mr. Scrooge!” said Bob; “I’ll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!”

  • The Founder of the Feast indeed!” cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. “I wish I had

  • him here. I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he’d have a good

  • appetite for it.”

  • My dear,” said Bob, “the children! Christmas Day.”

  • It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,” said she, “on which one drinks the health

  • of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert!

  • Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!”

  • My dear,” was Bob’s mild answer, “Christmas Day.”

  • “I’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s,” said Mrs. Cratchit, “not

  • for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy new year! Hell be very merry

  • and very happy, I have no doubt!”

  • The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had

  • no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn’t care twopence for it. Scrooge

  • was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party,

  • which was not dispelled for full five minutes.

  • After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief

  • of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation

  • in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly.

  • The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter’s being a man of business;

  • and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were

  • deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the receipt

  • of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner’s, then

  • told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch,

  • and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday

  • she passed at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and

  • how the lordwas much about as tall as Peter;” at which Peter pulled up his collars

  • so high that you couldn’t have seen his head if you had been there. All this time

  • the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost

  • child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang

  • it very well indeed.

  • There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family; they were not

  • well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty; and

  • Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker’s. But, they

  • were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they

  • faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit’s torch at parting,

  • Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.

  • By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit

  • went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and

  • all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations

  • for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep

  • red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. There all the children

  • of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins,

  • uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were shadows on the window-blind

  • of guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted,

  • and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbour’s house; where,

  • woe upon the single man who saw them enterartful witches, well they knew itin

  • a glow!

  • But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings,

  • you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there,

  • instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high.

  • Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened

  • its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless

  • mirth on everything within its reach! The very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting

  • the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere,

  • laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that he had

  • any company but Christmas!

  • And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert

  • moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place

  • of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed, or would have done so, but for

  • the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass.

  • Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the

  • desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was

  • lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.

  • What place is this?” asked Scrooge.

  • “A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,” returned the Spirit.

  • But they know me. See!”

  • A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing

  • through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing

  • fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children’s children,

  • and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old

  • man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste,

  • was singing them a Christmas songit had been a very old song when he was a boyand

  • from time to time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the

  • old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.

  • The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor,

  • spedwhither? Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge’s horror, looking back, he saw the last of the

  • land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering

  • of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and

  • fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

  • Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the

  • waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps

  • of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birdsborn of the wind one might suppose, as

  • sea-weed of the waterrose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.

  • But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole

  • in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their

  • horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas

  • in their can of grog; and one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and

  • scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might be: struck up a sturdy

  • song that was like a Gale in itself.

  • Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving seaon, onuntil, being far

  • away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside

  • the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark,

  • ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas

  • tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some

  • bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking

  • or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day

  • in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those

  • he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.

  • It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and

  • thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown

  • abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge,

  • while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge

  • to recognise it as his own nephew’s and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming

  • room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew

  • with approving affability!

  • Ha, ha!” laughed Scrooge’s nephew. “Ha, ha, ha!”

  • If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge’s

  • nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I’ll

  • cultivate his acquaintance.

  • It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in

  • disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter

  • and good-humour. When Scrooge’s nephew laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his

  • head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooge’s niece,

  • by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being not a bit behindhand,

  • roared out lustily.

  • Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!”

  • He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!” cried Scrooge’s nephew. “He

  • believed it too!”

  • More shame for him, Fred!” said Scrooge’s niece, indignantly. Bless those women; they

  • never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest.

  • She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face;

  • a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissedas no doubt it was; all kinds of

  • good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the

  • sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature’s head. Altogether she was

  • what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly

  • satisfactory.

  • He’s a comical old fellow,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “that’s the truth: and not so

  • pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing

  • to say against him.”

  • “I’m sure he is very rich, Fred,” hinted Scrooge’s niece. “At least you always

  • tell me so.”

  • What of that, my dear!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “His wealth is of no use to him.

  • He don’t do any good with it. He don’t make himself comfortable with it. He hasn’t

  • the satisfaction of thinkingha, ha, ha! — that he is ever going to benefit US with

  • it.”

  • “I have no patience with him,” observed Scrooge’s niece. Scrooge’s niece’s sisters,

  • and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.

  • Oh, I have!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “I am sorry for him; I couldn’t be angry

  • with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always. Here, he takes it

  • into his head to dislike us, and he won’t come and dine with us. What’s the consequence?

  • He don’t lose much of a dinner.”

  • Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,” interrupted Scrooge’s niece. Everybody else

  • said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had

  • just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire,

  • by lamplight.

  • Well! I’m very glad to hear it,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “because I haven’t

  • great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?”

  • Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, for he answered

  • that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the

  • subject. Whereat Scrooge’s niece’s sisterthe plump one with the lace tucker: not

  • the one with the rosesblushed.

  • Do go on, Fred,” said Scrooge’s niece, clapping her hands. “He never finishes what

  • he begins to say! He is such a ridiculous fellow!”

  • Scrooge’s nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep the infection

  • off; though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was

  • unanimously followed.

  • “I was only going to say,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “that the consequence of his taking

  • a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant

  • moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he

  • can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers.

  • I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him.

  • He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can’t help thinking better of it — I

  • defy himif he finds me going there, in good temper, year after year, and saying Uncle

  • Scrooge, how are you? If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty

  • pounds, that’s something; and I think I shook him yesterday.”

  • It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking Scrooge. But being thoroughly

  • good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate,

  • he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle joyously.

  • After tea, they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew what they were

  • about, when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who could growl

  • away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or

  • get red in the face over it. Scrooge’s niece played well upon the harp; and played among

  • other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two minutes),

  • which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had

  • been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the

  • things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he softened more and more; and thought

  • that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses

  • of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton’s

  • spade that buried Jacob Marley.

  • But they didn’t devote the whole evening to music. After a while they played at forfeits;

  • for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty

  • Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a game at blind-man’s buff. Of course

  • there was. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in

  • his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge’s nephew;

  • and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister

  • in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the

  • fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering himself among

  • the curtains, wherever she went, there went he! He always knew where the plump sister

  • was. He wouldn’t catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him (as some of

  • them did), on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which

  • would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the

  • direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn’t fair; and it really was

  • not. But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and

  • her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape;

  • then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending

  • that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity

  • by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck; was vile,

  • monstrous! No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in office,

  • they were so very confidential together, behind the curtains.

  • Scrooge’s niece was not one of the blind-man’s buff party, but was made comfortable with

  • a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind

  • her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the letters

  • of the alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very great, and to

  • the secret joy of Scrooge’s nephew, beat her sisters hollow: though they were sharp

  • girls too, as Topper could have told you. There might have been twenty people there,

  • young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for wholly forgetting in the

  • interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he

  • sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too; for

  • the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than

  • Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to be.

  • The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such

  • favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But this

  • the Spirit said could not be done.

  • Here is a new game,” said Scrooge. “One half hour, Spirit, only one!”

  • It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge’s nephew had to think of something, and the

  • rest must find out what; he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case

  • was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed, elicited from him that he

  • was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal,

  • an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in London,

  • and walked about the streets, and wasn’t made a show of, and wasn’t led by anybody,

  • and didn’t live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse,

  • or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At

  • every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter;

  • and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp.

  • At last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:

  • “I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!”

  • What is it?” cried Fred.

  • It’s your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!”

  • Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected

  • that the reply toIs it a bear?” ought to have beenYes;” inasmuch as an answer

  • in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing

  • they had ever had any tendency that way.

  • He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,” said Fred, “and it would be

  • ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at

  • the moment; and I say, ‘Uncle Scrooge!’ ”

  • Well! Uncle Scrooge!” they cried.

  • “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!” said Scrooge’s

  • nephew. “He wouldn’t take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge!”

  • Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have

  • pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if

  • the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last

  • word spoken by his nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

  • Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy

  • end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and

  • they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope;

  • by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery’s every refuge,

  • where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the

  • Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.

  • It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts of this, because

  • the Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together.

  • It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew

  • older, clearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until

  • they left a children’s Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood

  • together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey.

  • Are spiritslives so short?” asked Scrooge.

  • My life upon this globe, is very brief,” replied the Ghost. “It ends to-night.”

  • To-night!” cried Scrooge.

  • To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.”

  • The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.

  • Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said Scrooge, looking intently at

  • the Spirit’s robe, “but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding

  • from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?”

  • It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,” was the Spirit’s sorrowful

  • reply. “Look here.”

  • From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful,

  • hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

  • Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!” exclaimed the Ghost.

  • They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate,

  • too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and

  • touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had

  • pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned,

  • devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity,

  • in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible

  • and dread.

  • Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say

  • they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie

  • of such enormous magnitude.

  • Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

  • They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing

  • from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all

  • of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which

  • is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its

  • hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes,

  • and make it worse. And bide the end!”

  • Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge.

  • Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his

  • own words. “Are there no workhouses?”

  • The bell struck twelve.

  • Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate,

  • he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a

  • solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.

  • Recording © Bitesized Audio 2020.

Stave III: The Second of the Three Spirits

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A Christmas Carol | Stave III: The Second of the Three Spirits | Charles Dickens(A Christmas Carol | Stave III: The Second of the Three Spirits | Charles Dickens)

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    林宜悉 に公開 2023 年 07 月 17 日
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